Buyout would take Kinder Morgan private

The chairman and CEO of pipeline operator Kinder Morgan has teamed with senior managers and outside investors to buy the company for $13.4 billion and take it private, officials announced Monday.

Richard D. Kinder sent a letter to the Houston-based company's board Sunday offering to pay $100 a share, an 18.5 percent premium above Friday's $84.41 closing price. The deal also includes the assumption of more than $8 billion in debt.

The board has formed a special committee of independent directors to consider the proposal.

Kinder Morgan owns an interest in or operates about 43,000 miles of pipelines that transport primarily natural gas, crude oil and petroleum products. It also has more than 150 terminals that store, transfer and handle products like gasoline and coal, and provides natural-gas distribution to more than 1.1 million customers.

WestJet Airlines

Air Canada accepts apology, $5 million

WestJet Airlines agreed to pay C$5.5 million ($5 million) to settle allegations the carrier "covertly" accessed confidential information of larger rival Air Canada.

Canada's second-largest airline also will donate C$10 million in the name of both airlines to children's charities, the companies said Monday. Air Canada said it accepted WestJet's apology and withdrew its claims, terminating two-year-old legal proceedings.

Air Canada had alleged WestJet employee Jeffrey Lafond acquired confidential information from its employee travel-booking Web site and that WestJet used it to schedule flights that competed with Air Canada's most profitable routes.

Lafond quit Air Canada in 2000 and later joined WestJet, court documents said.

WestJet used the former Air Canada employee's identification number and personal code to gain access 243,630 times to the Web site during a 10-month period, the documents said.

Advanced Micro Devices

Dresden facilities to be expanded

U.S. semiconductor maker Advanced Micro Devices said Monday it will invest $2.5 billion to expand production facilities in the eastern German city of Dresden.

The expansion will include additional 300-millimeter wafer-production facilities, as well as a new clean-room facility for the final stages of manufacturing.

General Electric

Chinese sales forecast bullish

General Electric said it expects sales in China could double to $10 billion by 2010, with some of that growth coming from the development of clean-energy technologies.

"We are working closely with our customers and government in China to bring our new ideas in [clean] technologies to see that they are applied in China," CEO Jeff Immelt said Monday at a Beijing news conference.

GE had sales of $5 billion in China last year, about 3 percent of total sales, and employed almost 13,000 workers there.

Compiled from Bloomberg News, The Associated Press and Reuters